"Is that so, aunty?" said Ladybird, with her most exasperating air of polite interest. "Well, now I wonder where we _can_ stay? Would they take us to board down at the hotel? I don't know. Or perhaps Mrs. Jacobs would take us, if I helped her with the housework and sewing." "That is enough nonsense, Lavinia. I tell you that dog is to be put away." "I understand that, Aunt Priscilla; I'm not stupid, you know; I'm only wondering where we can go, for whithersoever Cloppy goest, I'm going, and there will I be buried." "Very well, you may go if you choose; but that dog shall not remain in this house another day." "You don't like him, do you aunty?" said Ladybird, leaning her chin on her hand and gazing thoughtfully at her aunt. "Now I wonder why." "He's always under foot," said Miss Priscilla, "and he's such a moppy, untidy-looking affair!" "He's a smart dog," said Ladybird, meditatively. "That's just it," said Miss Flint, "he's too smart: he looks at you just like a human. Why, when I scold him for anything, he sits up and stares at me, and those brown eyes of his blink through that ridiculous fringe of hair, and he never says a word, but sits there, and looks and looks at me until I feel as if I should just perfectly fly." "Aunt Priscilla," said Ladybird, looking at Miss Flint very steadily, "you haven't been doing anything wrong, have you?" "What do you mean?" said her aunt, angrily. "Oh, nothing, but when _I_ think Cloppy's looking at me like that, it's really my conscience inside of me telling me I've done wrong, when I think it's only a little dog blinking." Miss Flint sat quiet for a moment. Then the fact that there was a modicum of truth in her niece's remarks caused her annoyance to find vent in sarcasm. "I did not know, Lavinia, that you ever thought you had done wrong." "Oh, aunty, what a foolishness! Of course I know when I've done wrong, and you know I know it; and you know I'm as sorry as sorry as sorry! But sometimes I don't know it until I see that Cloppy-dog staring at me, and then I realize what's up; and so you see, aunty, I have to keep my little blinky doggy as a sort of a conscience. And now we'll consider that matter settled." "_You_ may consider what you choose," said Miss Priscilla, looking at her niece very sternly; "_I_ consider it is not settled, and will not be until the dog is disposed of permanently, and if you don't attend to it, I shall." "Aunt Priscilla," said Ladybird, rising from her chair with great dignity, "I will go to my room and think this matter over." "Do," said Miss Priscilla, dryly, "and take your conscience with you." "Come on, Conscience," said Ladybird to Cloppy, and swinging the dog up to her shoulder, she went to her room.